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Discussing Draedens
- Thread starter hamishspence
- Start date
My friend and I had some crazy ideas about Draedens after finding out about Ulgurshek and the ones trapped in the Plane of Ice.
Firstly, we thought that the "Ancient Ones" as we called them, the guys who created the draedens (and possibly the dragons), knew they couldn't build such big stuff as the Great Wheels themselves, and created the draedens to help. They formed a bunch of draedens into Great Wheels, and then the draedens got what they were doing and tried to kill the "Ancient Ones".
Secondly, we thought that Ao (and the other Overgods of the Great Wheels) were the manifestations of the slowly reviving draedens who were made into the Great Wheels.
As an aside, we should note that what we called the "Great Draeden" the real big guy who's in the Plane of Ice, is slowly getting weaker.
As a result of this, we came to this conclusion:
Thirdly, it's possible that the awakening draedens of the Great Wheels are actually draining the "Great Draeden" of his life. And, with a bit of speculation, it could have been Ulgurshek who was going to create the next Great Wheel along with the "Great Draeden". As a forward extrapolation from this, Ulgurshek might learn of how the "Great Draeden" is dying, so he resolves to free this guy(Not being too smart, he might think that the only way to revive him fully is to kill the guys who are draining him). So, he would bust the other guy outta the Plane of Ice, go for one of the Great Wheels, and get killed by Ma Yuan(with some help from Apep), recently revived by dropping his weapon into the Well of Darkness that holds him. Even in Ulgurshek's weakened state, pretty much the only guy who can match him is Ma Yuan. Then, the "Great Draeden", becoming fully awake, would kill Ma Yuan while he's fighting Apep, and destroy the rest of the Great Wheels. Then he himself would become the last Great Wheel, and then if that one gets destroyed by someone, *poof* goes most of existence (except the Abyss and Nine Hells, or what's left of them after Ulgurshek is gone).
*Slaps Shade with fish* HA!
Firstly, we thought that the "Ancient Ones" as we called them, the guys who created the draedens (and possibly the dragons), knew they couldn't build such big stuff as the Great Wheels themselves, and created the draedens to help. They formed a bunch of draedens into Great Wheels, and then the draedens got what they were doing and tried to kill the "Ancient Ones".
Secondly, we thought that Ao (and the other Overgods of the Great Wheels) were the manifestations of the slowly reviving draedens who were made into the Great Wheels.
As an aside, we should note that what we called the "Great Draeden" the real big guy who's in the Plane of Ice, is slowly getting weaker.
As a result of this, we came to this conclusion:
Thirdly, it's possible that the awakening draedens of the Great Wheels are actually draining the "Great Draeden" of his life. And, with a bit of speculation, it could have been Ulgurshek who was going to create the next Great Wheel along with the "Great Draeden". As a forward extrapolation from this, Ulgurshek might learn of how the "Great Draeden" is dying, so he resolves to free this guy(Not being too smart, he might think that the only way to revive him fully is to kill the guys who are draining him). So, he would bust the other guy outta the Plane of Ice, go for one of the Great Wheels, and get killed by Ma Yuan(with some help from Apep), recently revived by dropping his weapon into the Well of Darkness that holds him. Even in Ulgurshek's weakened state, pretty much the only guy who can match him is Ma Yuan. Then, the "Great Draeden", becoming fully awake, would kill Ma Yuan while he's fighting Apep, and destroy the rest of the Great Wheels. Then he himself would become the last Great Wheel, and then if that one gets destroyed by someone, *poof* goes most of existence (except the Abyss and Nine Hells, or what's left of them after Ulgurshek is gone).
*Slaps Shade with fish* HA!
Upper_Krust
Hero
Hey Sorrowdusk! 
Thats all well and good when the adventurers are low-level investigators but its a tad less satisfying when the heroes are actual demigods themselves.
Sorrowdusk said:
Thats all well and good when the adventurers are low-level investigators but its a tad less satisfying when the heroes are actual demigods themselves.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
A shame that the entire thing isn't being converted over - it's not unprecedented, though; this was how Gwydion the Shadow Fiend was converted in 2E's The Shadow Rift (though, as I recall, he was given a single stat block, IIRC it made him CR 40, in one of the 3.0 Ravenloft Gazetteers).
Upper_Krust
Hero
Howdy freyar!
Well I'd like to recommend the Akishra monster I created for my Immortals Handbook: Epic Bestiary, since that is effectively a severed tentacle from a Cogent (which is a monster inspired by the Draeden).
The Akishra illustration can be seen at the top of this page:
Immortality
The Cogent illustration is on this page, scroll down a bit:
Immortality
freyar said:
Well I'd like to recommend the Akishra monster I created for my Immortals Handbook: Epic Bestiary, since that is effectively a severed tentacle from a Cogent (which is a monster inspired by the Draeden).
The Akishra illustration can be seen at the top of this page:
Immortality
The Cogent illustration is on this page, scroll down a bit:
Immortality
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
The CC did something similar by converting just the head of Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent, back in 2005 (before I was on-board).
Neat! We'll have to take a look. The conceptual difference here I guess is that it won't be severed but that the organization will be such that the "cluster" of tube-segments will make up a full draeden.
Zelda Themelin
First Post
It's interesting to read about old things of D&D. Honestly I never found them so interesting. As an idea certainly, but presentation had always felt bit, dunno, "my monster is bigger than yours". I own epic bestiary, but to be totally honest, monsters there are bit boring. Some good ideas, but kinda not something I use when I run epic games. Far too many angels for example. Far too much plague of high ac, forced reason why make parties out of 60th lv characters. But book was using epic rules as they were made (bad IMO), so such is to be expected. I rather liked reading it though. I guess the book would have been more about something "elder evil" style monsters.
Draedens are sort of lovely despite what I just said. I play mostly using Scarred Lands and Golarion these days and they have enough things we have invented already that make a better fit.
I recall I made some Draeden-esque plot-line to my Greyhawk game. It included things like "Book of Chaos" from times before cosmic wheel existed like "today". And things older gods had lied to younger ones, and how they had really imprisoned Tharizdun. Ah the nostologia. My sis at times asks me to continue storyline, though she is only player of whose whereabouts I even know.
I didn't use them in my Mystara games before that, though. I had more storylines involing dark secrets of Glantri (loved that book), which I naturally expanded quite a lot. And immortal pc:s were mosty facing off agents of entropy and "living black hole".
Draedens are sort of lovely despite what I just said. I play mostly using Scarred Lands and Golarion these days and they have enough things we have invented already that make a better fit.
I recall I made some Draeden-esque plot-line to my Greyhawk game. It included things like "Book of Chaos" from times before cosmic wheel existed like "today". And things older gods had lied to younger ones, and how they had really imprisoned Tharizdun. Ah the nostologia. My sis at times asks me to continue storyline, though she is only player of whose whereabouts I even know.
I didn't use them in my Mystara games before that, though. I had more storylines involing dark secrets of Glantri (loved that book), which I naturally expanded quite a lot. And immortal pc:s were mosty facing off agents of entropy and "living black hole".
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Can you expand on some of what you mean here? I don't understand some of the points you raised, e.g. "my monster is bigger than yours," "high AC" and "forced reasons [to] make parties out of 60th level characters."
Does wanting the book to be more about "elder evil" style monsters mean that you wanted the monsters to be presented more as a situation than as a creature (a la WotC's Elder Evils book, which as I recall didn't actually have stats for the full creatures themselves)?
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